Best National World Music

The Chieftains

The ambassadors It's no surprise that the Chieftains keep winning in this category: if Irish musicians playing with a Chinese orchestra don't qualify as world music, what does? In their 30-something years of existence, and on their 30-odd CDs, Paddy Moloney, Martin Fay, Seán Keane, Matt Molloy, Derek Bell, and Kevin Conneff (pretty much the same personnel all that time) have traveled around the globe, and they've taken the high road with their classically oriented lineup of fiddles, uilleann pipes, flute and whistle, harp and tiompáin, and bodhrán -- no folk guitars, thank you. Yet these multiple Grammy winners have mixed it up with everyone from Chinese traditional ensembles in Beijing to Mick Jagger and Sting to country artists like Chet Atkins, Emmylou Harris, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; in the process they paved the way for Riverdance.

This year's CD was the soundtrack to the PBS TV series Long Journey Home. Interweaving traditional tunes like "The Night That Larry Was Stretched" with Paddy Moloney's own superb compositions, it's an aural celebration of Irish culture in America and a goodwill ambassador for Irish culture around the world. Of course, the Chieftains are their own goodwill ambassadors: they're welcome wherever they go.

-- Jeffrey Gantz